Because You Asked: The Changeling's Choice.: seanan

Yesterday I said that, to celebrate the upcoming release of One Salt Sea, I would once again make five blog posts detailing the background aspects of Toby's reality. This is the first of those posts.

liret asks "Can parents of changelings send their child off to the Summerlands alone and stay with their mortal spouses? I got the impression that Amandine was as stuck as Toby after Toby went through the Changeling's Choice, but I was wondering if arranging for a foster-family and writing the kid off was also possible."

The short answer: No.

The longer-form answer is, naturally, a little more complex.

For those of you who aren't aware, the Changeling's Choice is the process via which changeling children (fae/human crossbreeds) are presented with the two sides of their heritage. Pick fae, be whisked away to Faerie and never see your human family again. Pick mortal, your fae parent has to kill you on the spot. There are no takebacks; this is not something that can be negotiated. The Changeling's Choice is a necessary part of playing fairy bride.

The only exceptions are the weak-blooded fae, like Stacy or Marcia. Their magic was clearly strong enough to have triggered the Changeling's Choice at some point, since they're in Faerie, but if either of them were to have children with a human, there's a fifty/fifty chance that those kids would never manifest measurable magic, which means the Choice would never be triggered. (This is how we wind up with merlins.) Toby slept with Cliff knowing she might get pregnant, and chose to ride the odds as to whether Gilly would fall into that "magic too weak to become visible" sub-category. Since Gilly is still with her mortal family, and they haven't noticed anything unusual about her, Toby's gamble appears to have paid off.

Now, here's the thing: when a changeling is removed from the mortal world, either through abduction or death, they don't just vanish. That would leave too many questions unanswered, and could result in people searching for their children long past the point where it would be safe for Faerie to have them looking. Toby's father found bodies in the remains of the house; Natasha and October Daye were both declared dead, and were buried in Colma. Toby's father is buried next to what he assumed was his wife, but was actually a night-haunt's mannequin.

So could someone send their kid packing and stay with their mortal spouse? Sure, if they were able to convince their liege (and everyone has a liege, even if it's just the local King or Queen) that they could absolutely sell the idea that their child was dead, find a foster family, get the kid to choose Faerie, ship the kid off without getting caught, and manage to weather the aftermath of the "accident" without making any mistakes or getting accused of murder. Hint: this is very, very hard, especially given that most fae are incredibly attached to their children. Many purebloods think of human lovers as nothing more than a convenient way to get a baby, and would never even consider picking a spouse over a child.

In the event that a fae parent somehow convinced their liege that they could pull all this off, and then actually did manage to pull it all off, they would never be allowed to see that child again, and would have a seriously hard time convincing other fae to date them, since they have just proven that they're shitty parents. (I am aware that this is an apparent contradiction, given the fae fosterage system. Most societies are built on minor contradictions, and at least under normal fosterage, you'll eventually get the kid back. You know. When they finish being a teenager.)

So it's logistically hard, emotionally difficult, and culturally frowned upon. Technically, it's possible. Functionally, it's something no fae parent would really consider doing, even if they wanted to.

tereshkova2001

August 31 2011, 21:23:45 UTC 5 years ago

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If October was declared dead, how did she get a job at Safeway? I'm pretty sure they would have needed some form of ID to hire her. Or was she using a false identity?

ambermoon

September 1 2011, 03:08:02 UTC 5 years ago

As I recall (my copy of Rosemary and Rue is currently out on loan), Evening pulled something to give Toby her name and identity back after Toby called her from the police station.

September 1 2011, 03:28:13 UTC 5 years ago

Mm, that makes sense for after the pond, but then pushes my question back earlier. Toby-Cliff's-fiancee must have held a job, and again, hard to do if she's legally dead. Maybe she concocted an identity when she started dating Cliff.

September 1 2011, 04:31:29 UTC 5 years ago

Maybe it had to do with the time difference between the Summerlands and the mortal world? Since at the time she reappeared she was much younger than the mortal still-living October Daye would have been, so nobody connected the two. I guess she would have had to produce some kind of doctored birth certificate, but that seems like the kind of thing Faerie could easily handle.